lifedates unknown
This portrait of Julia Holnus demonstrates the style that Brady brought to portraits of ordinary, middle-class customers. It also shows Brady's ability to exploit the formal properties of a new photographic medium--the ambrotype, which was introduced in 1854. Where daguerreotypes were shiny and shifting, with subtle, silvery shades of black and white, the ambrotype was stable, and the tones were flat. Brady used the resulting high contrast to create an image that celebrates the fine, abstract pattern of the sitter's dark lace shawl on her pale dress
Mathew Brady Studio
Double ambrotype, 1854 -1856
Image 5 1/2 x 4; case 6 x 4 1/2 [viewable from both sides - double cemented glass]
Chicago Historical Society, Illinois